


Something Immovable

by Emby_M



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Arthur realizes a lot of things as he's dying, Cuddling, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Sharing a Bed, Terminal Illnesses, chapter 6 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 06:35:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19941790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emby_M/pseuds/Emby_M
Summary: "John and Abigail's bedrolls overlap by a few inches, and Arthur sits at that junction."-Arthur settles in for bed in the Marston tent.





	Something Immovable

Abby's sitting with Jack curled against her when he finally approaches the Marston tent.

It's late. The camp is uneasy, as it always is now.

Arthur's breathing catches and wheezes through his lungs. There is a deep ache, under his ribs, that won't go away anymore.

Things are bad. Too many people are dead. Arthur's mind still sticks on Kieran, the cruelty he'd always seen in Colm O'Driscoll played out in the macabre end to the gentle kid's life.

Dutch is completely undone by Hosea's death. Dutch had always been strange, kind of off kilter over the years, but without the tempering force of Hosea, Dutch was so much more paranoid, so much more hateful, so much more cavalier about death and killing innocents.

Oddly, Arthur can understand that. When John was carted off to prison, something dangerous reared its head. Being out with Sadie, who had lost the same restraint the day they found her (or perhaps never had it), only worsened the itch to kill every last motherfucker there, as if to say -- you'll rob me of another important thing in my life again? Not if I kill you first.

John was back, safe but for a few new wounds and the distrust in Dutch all the sane folks in camp were feeling. And Abby wasn't playing mean anymore about him, not when he'd really stepped up as a father over the last few months, not when it was increasingly them against Dutch and his posse, not when they were each other's source of comfort.

And Arthur-

What exactly has Arthur been doing?

Arthur...

has come to realize the important things. Walking out of that Doctor's place in Saint Denis -- stumbling like he was drunk, like he was in a dream... it had cleared his mind to what was important. There was no getting out of dying for him, but there were ways he could make the lives of others so much better.

And central to that is this little family -- _his_ little family.

Abby looks up at him. Things had been better, more comfortable for the Marstons at previous camps. This tent they have now is sparse, with their bedrolls close to the hard-packed dirt. Exhaustion wears itself plainly on Abigail's face, but she's keeping at least some kind of cheer, some kind of tired gentleness.

Arthur has done a lot of realizing in the last few days. A lot of thinking and pondering that he put on hold near three years ago, that day that John returned home after that year-long disappearance.

"Evening," Arthur greets, lingering by the doorway. He keeps his voice quiet for Jack, who dozes against his mother's thigh. 

"Evening," she murmurs up, a small smile coming to her face. "Come on in."

Arthur shucks his boots. He doesn't miss the jump in Abby's brows when she spots his socks, the green and blue striped ones she had knitted for him, doesn't miss the smile.

It's been years in the making. This feeling. 

He settles beside her. John and Abigail's bedrolls overlap by a few inches, and Arthur sits at that junction. 

"How are you?" Abby says, reaching up a hand to stroke at his hair.

"Sick," he says. His voice is different these days, thicker. "Tired. Sick of being tired and tired of being sick."

Another person might think he was snubbing them. Another person might get mad. Abby just laughs a little, sinks her fingers into his hair and leans her head on his shoulder.

"Sorry to hear that. Are you sleeping here tonight?"

Arthur rests his head on hers. It's a familiar feeling -- he's done this hundreds of times and he never gets tired of being beside her. Sometimes it feels like she and John and him were made perfect for each other, the way they all fit together. "If I can."

"Of course you can," she murmurs, smoothing that hand down his back.

They don't talk much. Abigail hums some tune, smoothing her hand down Arthur's back, watching Jack as he snuffles in his sleep, half-formed words about knights and cowboys and sailors.

That was the kind of thoughts he's been thinking. That this was his family. That Jack was his son, too. That if he wasn't dying, he would take the two of them, John and Abigail both, and marry them in a proper church.

If he wasn't dying.

It's taken a long time.

Shyness had gotten the better of him. Something deep rooted, something immovable, had taken hold of him.

Loving John, loving a man, that had not been warped by this immovable thing. He'd had no shame about that. Loving Abigail after John's apparent death had not been warped either.

But loving John and Abigail at the same time had. It had stuck like a fishbone in his throat this idea of having the two of them at once. Even if they knew and loved him too, there was something that felt dirty, lecherous. 

He felt like he was cuckolding one of them, cheating on the other, even if they knew. It felt _wrong._ It's why he had lightly shunned John's affections once he and Abby got serious. It's why he had given up on the feelings that had grown during that year he raised Jack alongside Abby when John returned -- neatly packaged away the affection and desire he had for Abigail, just like the little ring he had meant to propose to her with.

It's why he was surly with them. Why sometimes he was awful mean. Why sometimes he looked at those two and rolled his eyes because they were fools in love and he loved both of them, wanted to be a fool alongside them.

The first night he had slept between them was an accident. He had drank too much, choked on liquor until he coughed it out again, clear spirits stained with blood. When Abigail had found him, slumped against a tree, throat burning, she had hefted him onto her sturdy shoulders and dragged him into the tent.

They laid him down, just like now, on the overlaps of their bedrolls. Jack had even nestled against his side, tucked between John and him, the warmth of three sets of arms holding him gently flooding his eyes with tears. 

That night, John had woken a little, smoothed away some of the hair from Arthur's teary eyes, and kissed his temple like it was easy, like Arthur was supposed to be there. 

When he woke, knowing that he couldn't stay, rise sleepily with the Marstons, he ripped himself from those loving holds and returned, head and throat and sinuses burning, to his own lonely tent.

Abigail now, she gently moves Jack to his own little bedroll. Covers him loosely - the heat is cloying, even at night -- and presses a little kiss to his hair. You could tell so much about her from the way she treated Jack -- she was at her core someone who cares and protects, fiercely loyal and supportive.

She turns back to him, after a moment. 

It's dark, with a small lantern in the corner of the tent casting shadows on Abigail's soft face. She's smiling, a bit, gently.

"It's late," she says, settling herself down on her side, "Come and sleep."

He thinks about that year he spent with her, in her bed, beside her. The feeling of her draped over his left side never left him. He craves being held by her often. Especially when he's alone on a job or out exploring the country. He's nothing of the wanderer that John is, not so well versed in tramping, but he wants to show Abby some of the things he's seen.

Tonight, though, she seems to have another idea in mind. Something that wasn't her draping herself over him.

She holds open her arms, gesturing him down with the tilt of her head.

They had done that before. Where she held him, her arms cradling his head like she was protecting something, their tummies pressed close. And he had been completely enamored with it, with the safety he felt in her arms -- Abigail was tough, but she wasn't a fighter, not the same way someone like Sadie or Karen is. There wasn't a lot of logical sense why it felt so safe.

But he wasn't going to complain.

He settles into her arms. Rests his head on the soft meat of her upper arm - that stockiness she has is so good, makes her so comfortable -- asks once again if his head is too heavy, but she's already cupping the back of his head and pulling him close, tucking him into the crook of her jaw and neck and shoulder and chest.

His hands find her waist, and his breath shudders.

He loves Abigail, just as he loves John, in every way a person can. It's a shame, now that he's accepted his dual love, that he has no energy to answer to his attraction to them, no energy to strip either of them bare and please them. He's not even sure how contagious he is, if that kind of affection would doom them too. He thinks about her soft skin, all the times he's asked her to model for a drawing, the way she's put together like a mesa, solid and breathtaking.

But this closeness -- that is chaste but so intimate, the precise and easy way she holds his head, drags her stout fingers through his sandy hair, leaves room enough for him to breathe -- is something much rarer than sex. The press of her, against his body from cheek to shin, is not passionate, but it fills his wet lungs with something warm, honey-like. 

He doesn't feel like he's drowning anymore.

The tears start unbidden and unexpected. Abigail notices, but says nothing, only presses a little kiss to his eyebrow.

"I feel like I'm crying too much these days," he sobs into her shoulder.

"It's okay," she murmurs, pressing more kisses along his knitted brow. 

"I don't want to cry," he whines. He sounds like a child, voice high and unashamed.

"I think it'd be stranger if you didn't."

The tent flap opens. Arthur hides his face in Abby's shoulder. If it's Dutch, or Javier, or even Karen, mistaking the Marston tent for her own in her blind-drunk haze-

"Whoa," John says quietly, in his worn-down voice.

"He's having a moment," Abby says. Anyone else said that and he'd try to rip their throat out, all the unkind ideas tied up in "Having a moment", but there's no judgement or harshness in her voice.

John lets out a commiserating sound - not pitying, but understanding. And then he's silent. 

Arthur can hear him taking off his boots. Abigail - she hasn't moved her head, but she might be watching him, might be watching Arthur. 

The lantern is snuffed. And then -

John lays along Arthur's back, holding him by his waist.

Arthur's tears only redouble, focusing all the places he touches those two - the two he loves so so desperately, the ones he wants to spend his life with, wants to leave violence behind for.

John hums a tune. Something simple, quietly mournful. John's voice is very good, rough and free, just like him. When Abby's honey-sweet voice joins in, Arthur places his hand on top of John's, stroking the rough knuckles.

He isn't sure when he falls asleep, but he's untroubled by dreams that night, drifting along the thought of love and hope.


End file.
